45 minutes. Good morning, everybody. Its such a pleasure to be here in a room with fellow churchillians, sharing stories and pointing out what inspired you about winston. Its been a lovely day and a half. It was very exciting yesterday to hear Lady Williams talking about what it was like to be a secretary of chartwell. Power to the project were doing at chartwell, church hillills chartwell we plan to open the room in 2020. You plan to hear more about that. In terms of churchill, i was trying to think what we had in the collection from that, we have a gift from london, one of my favorite items in the house. Its in the library. I was really interested yesterday to start to hear a little bit about churchills relationship from lord darian. Im going to hear more about that now. So weve got another family of writers like churchills here. Weve got the bews with us this morning. Very excited to hear what they are going to say. And we have lord bew, who is professor of politics at Queens University in belfast and we have john bew, who is professor of im sorry, lord bew. So lord bew is our politics expert and john bew is our history professor and Foreign Affairs and Award Winning historian. They are going to give us an excellent talk this morning starting off with john. So can we have a big warm welcome for the bews [ applause ] can everybody hear me okay . Id just like to thank again organizers for an absolutely fantastic conference so far. Its been wonderful many, many levels, particularly to extend the invitation to me. A pleasure representing. In 2012 we first met when i gave a lecture at library of congress. About six people turned up at, michael was one of them. We stayed in touch since then. He was with me at my darkest hour, if you like. Its very nice to be here today. My father and i discussing how to break up our talk. Hopefully it will be something of a conversation. While we are related our books are not related. So the discussion who to go first. On the basis of youth and book sales, we went for me. He will no doubt interrupt at various points over the course of my talk. So i want to talk about the relationship that clement at lee and the strategiuring Second World War. I can Start Talking about churchill and attlee, some true that churchill said, for example, attlee is a modest man with much to be modest about or a sheep in wolf clothing. The other one too crude to mention before the watershed but i must do it anyway, a story of them enter during Second World War where apparently winston shuffled off to one corner and attlee said unusually modest for you, winston. Applied any time you socialists see something big, you want to nationalize it. Im not sure i wont tell you this is true. Just to say lots of disparaging remarks attributed to churchill about att lee. The interesting thing he would never allow anyone else to disparage attlee in his country. He would reply and say, no, no, no hes a great patriot. Dont criticizes in my company. One of my favorite stories really as winston got deafer and deafer, he would sit by his side and just be talked to by him. Church hill couldnt hear anything back, talking about their relationship. The relationship actually has a number of interesting sort of punctuation points. It goes back, the first connection between churchill and attlee. The home schooler, who didnt last very long with churchill. The atlees would tell the story about a bell ringing, churchill with his governess, whats wrong, Young Winston would reply. Shes very cross, please remove her from the room. That was the first connection. There was a kind of familiarity there. The second connection attlee was conservative and imperialist in his school days. The one thing for which he got in trouble in school was overzealously celebrating relief of lady smith, reading Winston Church hills reports. Thats when he first became aware of churchill. There was nine years between them. Secondly when churchill was elected in 1900 attlee remembered reading about this young rising star of our party, the conservative growing up. By 1911, interestingly, and this is perhaps my favorite connection between the two, at sydney street 1911, sends in the army to deal with sort of incident of latvian an archnarc. Attlee is there as a social worker in the community, this scene of churchill with his top hat ordering the army in and atlee with social worker, dedicated socialist really is a very striking one. Also lord owen, five years later he finds himself fighting in churchills campaign. Hes the second last man. I will let my father come in here because its important, i want to go back to it. He has a point to make. We talked a lot at this conference, and i agree with everything ive heard. G gallipoli, a ghoul section irish, more important the type of soldiers, the society, modern unionists, modern nationalists who joined up and died at gal inialgallipoli. They die in droves. Churchill knew some of these people, major grimshaw who dies in prison alongside in the same sell in south africa. He knew it. He would have known sons of irish mps that died, westminster. You look at the black plaque in westminster youll see many sons died in mainstream british parties. He knew these people yet he says very little about it. Great soldiers the irish are. The significance of this, churchill about this, 1921 you get the troubles in ireland, awful violence, sectarian, bitterness of the i. R. A. Campaign, organized baboonery churchill called it, he constantly says where are the decent irishmen i knew. Where are the same moderates on both sides. The answer is a lot of them were dead at gallipoli. Its something he never really faces up to. To pick up from that attlee, hes carried off paddle field three times. His war record becomes a major part of his political identity, distinguishes him between conscientious objectives in the labor movement, huge part of the relationship with churchill thereafter. Even when they are having strive and arguments in 1920s when they are both mps, attlee always said im prepared to give the devil his due. Churchill is right about gallipoli. The one idea in the last war. The reason why that matters is it sets the tone for the relationship between them. You can imagine the meeting in the lobby. They do meet in the lobby over the course of the 20s and 30s and have respect between them. The major and the man who sent them to this part of the world. One thing striking in attlees correspondence, in his letters to his family, winston looms so large in the 30s, hes kind avepoint of reference even when he seemed to be out in the cold politically hes constantly referred to. He thinks winston is completely off the mark of things like india, but stars start to align over the course of the 30s. They share basically ultimately a similar world view. The many on the left sneer at, simplistic, believes in the same core western values as churchill does when it comes to the crunch. Hes not an apologist for soviet union, doesnt bat his eyes to mussolini as many on the left and right do. That core sense of western energetic bipartisanship really starts in the course of the 30s. We heard that stressed very importantly. So it means by the time you come to may 1940, theres a famous cartoon which some of you may be aware of by david lowe, preeminent cartoonist called all behind you, winston, had the Coalition Government lining up behind churchill as he rolls up his sleeve and marches into battle. That the attlees proudest moment. At the University Library i went to see lowes papers. He writes a letter and asks for the original topic. Later when he puts it up by exhibition, his wife insists they have it back, its his proudest moment in 1940. Its not just that that relationship means a broader and large respect for churchills strategic mind, it also shapes how attlee guides labor spot Wartime Coalition because he says a few things about gallipoli. He says the reason why it was badly organized in the first war was due to the generalship and political squabbling at home. The first thing he says to church hill when they are discussing the balance of the coalition, i will not squabble over seats. I was an old gallipoli man. You give me whatever seats you want. A strong view of internal struggling and causing issues or jost ling for advantage in the war of coalition is not the way to proceed. By the way, hes under immense pressure from his party to do precisely that during the war. Hes always stepping and backing with churchill. His colleague Herbert Morrison comes to the coalition attlee decided at the start of the war to back winston on all key strategic positions. As much as we talk about this Great Success store, 41, up to christmas of 42, the war does not go well for britain and does not go well for churchill. Theres plenty of sharks circling around themt including eaton, supposed to be closest to him. Not during the last but through all those early strategic decisions. That relationship is crucial. I think attlee should be given his due. Church hill did appreciate him on key decisions. Who is criticizing attlee for taking advantage, hes criticizing and generals. Attlee backs churchill against gebls in key strategic decisions. You can say he does so because hes simple thinker, but a broader appreciation of what he called higher strategy, which distinguished churchill from the generals, in particular the general staff with a more limited conception of strategy. Also attlee realized churchill had a better appreciation of what he calls the precarious balance of coalition warfare. In particular the key generals at allenbrook, also montgomery as well, he feels attlee do not appreciate difficulties of getting americans spoke war but the necessity of steering them to war in key strategic theaters britain values most importantly. This goes to a point i heard Andrew Roberts make on a number of occasions, which is that act of american statesmanship, the decision to fight first in europe is the most selfless act of statesmanship in the 21st century. It is not inevitability. Attlee following churchill believes church hill achieved finely balanced coalition through this effective relationship with americans across the peace. Generals sometimes by squabbling or complaining about eisenhowers command actually potentially jeopardize. Thats the first level of appreciation. Secondly attlee understands with the key Strategic Maneuvers in the war the politics of what chur churchill is doing. Therefore he supports the general quite absurd, suggested campaign in sumatra, this attention grabbing Agenda Setting political maneuvers that churchill wants to try at various points. I think back to that quote under churchill essentially one army engaged in three theaters simultaneously. Attlee appreciates and understands what churchill is trying to do there, which is to set the political agenda. The big example is britain leading invasion of italy. Churchill turns to attlee and says they respect us. Political optics of maneuvers attlee had a refined appreciation for this broader, higher strategy. Im going to hand over to my father in a moment just to say attlee is responsible for decisive and interesting quotes about churchill reflecting on him in later years. He said i used to compare him to one of those layer cakes. He had a 17th century layer, 18th century layer, 19th century layer and sometimes 20th century layer. The thing about winston you were never sure which layer was uppermost. Thank you, john. That last comment reminds me of a different variant of the layer cake, the irish ambassador from neutral ireland in london, attlee churchills stand during the war had a meeting and said by the way he had known churchill a long time effective in manchester politics in the first decade of the 20th century we are going to leave American History for live coverage of a brief with House Minority leader nancy pelosi and a number of Health Care Advocates to talk about health care and tax reform. The house is considering the rule for